Although Ran Borune had by now tentatively - and very reluctantly - conceded that Pol and I might possibly have capabilities he wasn’t prepared to admit actually existed, she and I remained largely in the background during those meetings. As I told the emperor, ‘There’s not much point in distracting your generals by telling them things they’re not philosophically prepared to accept. If we announce that I’m sneaking up on my seven thousandth birthday, they’ll spend so much time trying to prove that we’re lying that they won’t be able to pay attention to what they’re supposed to be doing. Let’s just tell them that Pol and I are Rivans and let it go at that.’

The thing that baffled us the most was the fact that Urvon wasn’t moving. He’d brought his army across the Sea of the East, right enough, but then he’d settled down in the Hagga Military District on the southern coast of Cthol Murgos as if he planned to put down roots. Finally, I sent word to the twins that I needed to talk with Beldin face to face. You can only do so much at a distance.

My brother arrived a few days later and came to my room in the Cherek embassy. It wasn’t a particularly large room, but I’m a plain sort of person, so I don’t really need luxurious quarters. My first question to him was fairly simple. ‘What’s holding him up?’

‘The Murgos,’ he replied. ‘What else? That and the fact that he hasn’t received his marching orders from Burnt-face yet.’

‘What’s Ctuchik’s problem?’

‘He doesn’t like Urvon.’

‘Who does? I don’t think even Torak likes him very much. But Urvon’s following orders, and Torak’s likely to rip Ctuchik’s heart out of his skinny chest if he interferes.’

‘You weren’t listening, Belgarath,’ my stumpy brother told me. ‘I didn’t say it was Ctuchik who was blocking Urvon. It’s the Murgos - and somewhat more specifically the Murgo Grolims.’

‘What’s the difference? Ctuchik rules Cthol Murgos, doesn’t he?’

‘That he does, brother, but he’s sort of looking the other way at the moment. Let’s see if I can explain it. If Urvon reaches Arendia with his army, Torak’s very likely to promote him to “Most Favored Disciple”, or whatever you want to call it. Ctuchik doesn’t want that to happen, but he doesn’t dare interfere - at least not overtly. That doesn’t keep him from slipping around behind the scenes, though. He’s spent centuries instilling an obsession with racial purity in the collective Murgo mind, and Malloreans aren’t pure Angaraks. The average Mallorean’s part Angarak, part Karand, part Melcene, with maybe a pinch of Dal thrown in for good measure. Murgos look on Malloreans as mongrels, and they don’t hesitate to say so.’

‘Yes, I know all about that, but Murgos take their orders from the Grolims, and no Grolim alive is likely to do anything to offend Torak.’

‘You don’t really know that much about Grolims, I see. Grolim politics are very involuted. No matter what Torak might think, there’s a great schism in the Angarak religion, and it’s based on the hatred that exists between Ctuchik and that piebald Urvon. Ctuchik dropped a few hints to his Grolims after Urvon landed in Hagga, and his priests have been spreading wild stories all over southern Cthol Murgos about drunken Mallorean soldiers breaking into Murgo houses and raping Murgo women. That’s the sort of thing almost guaranteed to make a Murgo go up in flames. Ctuchik’s official position is that he’ll help Urvon’s army in any way he can, but his Grolims are out there spreading atrocity stories for all they’re worth. Murgo generals are very polite to Mallorean officers in the daytime - but every night disorganized mobs of common soldiers come out of their barracks and butcher every Mallorean they can lay their hands on. Ctuchik piously sits in Rak Cthol going, “tsk, tsk, tsk”, and pretends that he can’t do anything about it, and all Urvon can do is squat in Rak Hagga wringing his hands while Murgo lynch-mobs decimate his army. I know it’s an unnatural thing to suggest, but in this particular situation, Ctuchik might turn out to be our most valuable ally.’

‘That’ll all come to an end once Torak gives Urvon his marching orders, won’t it?’

‘I doubt it. Ctuchik’s probably going to obediently order his southern Murgos to join Urvon’s army, but all that’ll do is give the Murgos an opportunity to get in close to the Malloreans - with knives. The trek across southern Cthol Murgos is likely to be very interesting, and Urvon’ll be lucky if he’s got a regiment left by the time he reaches the southern Tolnedran border.’

‘What an absolutely beautiful notion.’

‘I thought you might like it.’

‘Why don’t I take you to the palace and introduce you to the Tolnedran generals so you can fill them in on this? Oh, incidentally, Pol and I haven’t made an issue of who we really are. I’ll just tell them that you’re a Drasnian spy and let it go at that. Let’s not upset the Tolnedran generals just yet.’

He shrugged. ‘If that’s the way you want it,’ he agreed.

The officer commanding the Tolnedran General Staff was named Cerran, and he was a member of the Anadile family in Southern Tolnedra. The Anadiles had never had sufficient land or power to aspire to the imperial throne, so they usually joined the army. They’d traditionally been closely allied with the Borunes, so when the Borunes were on the throne, you’d normally find an Anadile general in command of the military. General Cerran was a thoroughgoing professional in his early fifties. He was a Tolnedran, so he wasn’t as tall as the Alorns, but he was a blocky sort of man with broad shoulders and large hands. He and Brand got along together very well.

I’m not really all that competent with the Drasnian secret language, but I managed to advise Pol and Rhodar that Beldin was posing as a member of Drasnian intelligence, and Rhodar greeted him warmly and introduced him as ‘one of our most valuable agents.’ Then Beldin repeated what he’d told me earlier.

‘How long would you say it’ll take Urvon to march across southern Cthol Murgos, Master Beldin?’ General Cerran asked after my brother had finished his account.

Beldin shrugged. ‘Half a year at least. He’ll have to stop every so often to put down riots, I expect.’

‘That tells us one of the things we’ve needed to know, then. Your friend and his daughter told us that this Kal Torak of Mallorea has to be in Arendia on a certain date. As I understand it, it has something to do with the Angarak religion.’

‘I suppose you could put it that way, yes. So what?’

‘We don’t know what that date is, but Kal Torak does. He’ll want Urvon in place when that date approaches, so as soon as Urvon starts marching, we’ll know that we’ve got just about a year until we’ve got to be ready to meet the Angaraks somewhere in Arendia.’

‘That’s a little imprecise, Cerran,’ Ran Borune objected.

‘It’s a lot more specific than anything we’ve been able to come up with so far, your Majesty,’ Cerran replied. ‘King Cho-Ram assures us that his Stronghold’s impregnable, so Kal Torak’s going to get more and more frustrated as the time for him to be in Arendia approaches. Eventually he’ll be forced to break off his siege and march west. Angaraks take their religious obligations very seriously.’ Cerran rose from his chair and went to the large map hanging on the wall of the war-room. ‘An army the size of Kal Torak’s won’t move very fast,’ he noted, ‘particularly not once it gets up into the mountains of Ulgoland. It’s a hundred and fifty leagues from the Stronghold to Central Arendia. At ten miles a day, it’ll take him forty-five days. Give him another fifteen days to regroup, and we’re talking about two months. Our first signal will come when Urvon marches. The second will be Kal Torak’s abandonment of the siege of the Stronghold. That’s all we really need, isn’t it? The Murgos may or may not try to stop Urvon’s Malloreans, but we definitely will. I rather think that General Urvon’s going to be late getting to Arendia. Kal Torak’s a foreigner, so he doesn’t know all that much about the legions. I fully intend to educate him. I’ll stop Urvon dead in his tracks at Tolnedra’s southern border.’

Now you see why Pol and I insisted that we coordinate our planning with the Tolnedran generals.

Once we knew that we’d have plenty of warning, we turned our attention to the campaign in Arendia. General Cerran’s staff had carefully prepared plans for the defense of just about every location in the country. I’d spoken privately with Brand about that. Very few battles have ever been won from defensive positions. The methodical Tolnedrans, however, had compared Torak’s numbers with ours and concluded that our taking the offensive without the legions to help us was absolutely out of the question, and the legions were going to be busy somewhere else.

The Tolnedran generals didn’t know why the Alorn kings all deferred to Brand, but they weren’t stupid. They recognized respect when they saw it, and after about six months of those ongoing strategy-sessions, they also recognized Brand’s tactical genius. Tolnedrans don’t normally have much use for Alorns, but in Brand they could see an altogether different sort of man. His genius lay in his ability to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the various elements that were to be a part of the army that was going to face Kal Torak when the final battle took place.